


Compromises

by Jld71, ShadyB



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 15:44:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13767315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jld71/pseuds/Jld71, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadyB/pseuds/ShadyB
Summary: Arthur is wounded in a job that goes bad and he and Eames are taken prisoner.   There Arthur witnesses just how far Eames is willing to go to keep him alive.  Set After the movie.





	Compromises

**Compromises**

                The kick, what pulled Arthur from dream to reality was the crack of gunfire.  He was awake when the bullet hit him, ripped into his chest high and on the right, the spot where breastbone met clavicle and shoulder.  The impact threw him in the air, the second round caught him lower, just below his diaphragm.  He blacked out before he hit the floor.  He snapped back to find himself lying in a pool of blood, chaos of shouts and artillery around him.  Pain overwhelming him, consuming him but his eyes scanned the room frantically, trying to figure out what was happening. 

Something had obviously gone wrong. They’d been found out.  Men with guns, masks covering their faces, dressed all in black swarmed into the room like shadows.  They clustered around the Mark, protecting him.  Across the room, Cobb was holding them off while the others’ got out through a broken window. Except for Eames; Eames was beside him, crouched on the floor, trying to staunch the flow of blood with his suit jacket.  Waste of a gorgeous tailoring job.  The way that jacket fit Eames had been a work of art. 

 “Don’t waste your time, get out of here while you can,” Arthur ordered. 

“No,” Eames said. “I’m not leaving you to them.” 

Too late anyway, a rifle butt smashed across Eames’ face and masked guards were pulling him away, picking Arthur up off the floor. Everything went black again. 

*

He was sprawled on the concrete floor of a fenced off enclosure inside a dimly lit storeroom. Shadow figures of the guards hovered nearby.  His mouth was so dry his lips felt sewn together, he was dizzy; the room spun.  He felt sick to his stomach from the smell of blood, the tackiness of it on his hands, under him.   Then there was the pain.   If he could keep perfectly still, barely breathing it was an ache so deep it went down into his soul.  When he moved, no matter how slightly, it was like being stabbed, sharp and electric.

Still, he forced himself to reach in his pocket, take out his dice, gave them a roll.

It wasn’t a dream. It was real. 

Too real; his body and the damage to it.

He needed to take a piss but he couldn’t even try to get to his feet. Too weak, it hurt too much.  His bladder let go, urine soaking his pants, pooling with the blood on the floor beside him.  World turned inside out, all the things that should be kept inside, contained on the outside for anyone to see.  If the wounds didn’t kill him the shame would. 

Eames was beside him, his arms still streaked with Arthur’s blood.

“Hold on, Arthur,” he said low. “I’m going to try and get you a doctor.  These guards, they’re willing to talk.  They find me amusing; I think I can persuade them to cooperate.”

“Don’t look at me like this. I don’t want you to see me like this ...”

“It doesn’t matter. All that matters is keeping you alive.”

*

Arthur flickered in an out of consciousness. Mostly he was aware of what Eames was doing.  Eames standing by the door of the fenced-in cage, talking to the guards, guns leveled at his head. Arthur could hear his voice but not his words.  He was arguing, cajoling, pleading, coaxing.  His shirt was unbuttoned halfway down his chest.  What exactly did he mean by “persuade them to cooperate”?  Arthur had a sinking feeling he knew. 

Eames beside him once again; holding his hand and whispering reassurances.

Eames on the other side of the fencing kneeling before a guard. The masked man’s pants were down around his ankles.  He was wearing fingerless leather gloves, his hands clutching Eames by the head, moving him back and forth.  Arthur looked away.

“I got water, try and drink.” Eames was back, holding him up so he could drink.  The seal of his lips, his throat ripped open by the lukewarm water.  He’d been so thirsty it almost hurt to drink.  Eames poured the water on a ragged piece of cloth, wiped Arthur’s forehead.  It was cool and soothing.  He hadn’t realized how hot he was, burning up.  Had to be a fever, were his wounds infected?  That on top of so much blood loss.  He wouldn’t last long. 

“Don’t do things for them,” he told Eames. “They’ll make promises but they won’t keep them.”

“I got water,” Eames said. “They gave me water.”  

“When you asked for a doctor. They’ve pegged you as an easy mark.  They’re not giving you anything.” 

“I’ll wear them down.”

“Don’t degrade yourself.”

“Darling, there are certain compromises I’m willing to make to keep you alive,” Eames said.

“This isn’t a dream, Eames. You’re not a Forger here; you can’t turn into a movie star and seduce them into giving you everything you ask for.  As far as they’re concerned you’re a two-bit hustler they can pass around.  They’re just going to use you.”

A man with a gun came up behind Eames. He dropped a hand on the top of Eames’ head and   gestured towards Arthur with his rifle.

“This one’s prettier than you,” the man said. “And I don’t hear him making demands.  Maybe I’d rather fuck him than you.”

“Leave him alone,” Eames said too sharply. “Can’t you see he’s hurt?”

“Don’t use that tone of voice with me, faggot. Your mouth is for sucking dick, not telling me what to do.” 

“No, of course not, I would never presume to tell you how to do your job,” Eames purred, reaching up to clasp the man’s belt. “But really, there’s no need to bother with the boy.  I’m sure you’ll be quite satisfied with me.  Why don’t I show you a little something I learned in Tahiti?”

*

He watched from what seemed a great distance at a man’s naked buttocks pounding in a staccato rhythm.  Occasionally he caught a glimpse of Eames, flattened between the man and the fencing, his fingers woven into the mesh.  Another guard stood nearby, watching or maybe waiting for a turn.  It made him feel sick, sicker to see it.

  Later Eames brought more him water.  A wreath of bruises had been sucked from the skin around his throat.  Brown and blue like some kind of hideous leeches.  Arthur winced. 

“I’m going to die,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.  Don’t let them do anything more to you.”

“Cobb will get us out of here,” Eames said. “You just need to hang on.” 

*

Wonder of wonders, a doctor appeared. Well, a sort of a doctor; a broken-down junkie who once, in another life had practiced medicine.  He fished inside Arthur’s wounds for bullet fragments, cut out dead flesh.  More blood, fresh pain.  When he was done he poured something clear and stinging on the open wounds.  It smelled of pure alcohol, probably vodka.  Well, better than nothing. 

The doctor packed his wounds with gauze and gave him a shot -- some kind of narcotic, a painkiller. For the first time since he’d been shot the pain receded enough that Arthur could sleep instead of just blacking out, writhing in fevered dreams. Good.  If he could sleep he could heal and if he could heal just a little he could hold out that much longer.

Where the fuck was Cobb?

*

His head was cushioned on Eames’ lap. Eames was stroking his hair.  “We’ll get through this.  Will get through this,” Eames repeated again and again.  As he said it he was crying.  Glistening tears running down his cheeks.  He looked nearly as rough as Arthur felt.  There was a raw gash on his cheek, he was unshaven, dark circles engulfed his eye.  Eames was also fading fast, Arthur realized.  Then a guard unlocked the door and Eames changed entirely.  He was on his feet, smiling and seductive, eyes flashing like he was up for anything.

*

Eames asking for things, when he’d already asked for too much.

“He’ll die if he stays here; he needs to be in a hospital.”

“No hospital.”

*

 Eames writhing on the floor, just a few feet away.  Far too close for decency.  Eames sounded like he was having the best sex of his life.  Telling whoever it was on top of him how huge their dick was, how amazing it felt, how much he loved whatever they were doing to him.

 If the half-light, Arthur could make out his face, the lines of strain and pain written on it in direct contradiction to his words.  Reaching out, he found Eames’ hand, clasped it. Eames held on like it was a lifeline until they were done with him. 

*

The sound of gunfire drew him from dreams into reality. He was in Eames’ arms being lifted, being carried like a child through the open door of the enclave.  Cobb was there, gun in his hand.  Shadows shaped like men sprawled on the floor in pools of blood. 

“Just a little longer,” Eames whispered. “Hold on just a little longer.”

*

Eames came to see Arthur when he got out of Intensive Care.

“You look like shit,” he said. “Of course you looked like death before, so shit is a definite improvement.”

“Thank you for what you did,” Arthur said tensely. He didn’t really know what to make of Eames anymore.  “It must have been terrible for you.” 

“I’ve done worse,” Eames said. His eyes locked to Arthur’s.  “I’ve done worse for less.”

“They used you.”

“I used them. Their lust, their pride, their hubris, their desire to hold power over another. I used them.  I played them.  I got what I wanted from them.  I kept you alive.”

“Why did it matter so much to you, whether I lived or died?”

Eames looked down at him, his eyes sad.

“You’re a bright boy,” he said flatly. “Figure it out.”

Of course Arthur knew. He’d suspected, even before the bullets that Eames cared for him.  The blood and pain, the ordeal they’d gone through, the sacrifices Eames had made, that just made him that much more sure of it.  He’d figured it out all right.  He just didn’t know what to do about it. 

Eames had never been good enough for him. In the past, Arthur’s life had been governed by an extracting set of principles, by impossibly high standards.   He looked at Eames, with his shirt half unbuttoned, his necklace of hickies, his porno talk and his special tricks.  He looked at Eames and judged him.  He really was a two bit hustler.  He’d let himself be touched, taken.  He’d invited it.  He’d lowered himself, been made dirty.  He was tainted now, according to Arthur’s standards; unclean, low, disgusting.    

The thing was, those standards didn’t seem to matter anymore. Lying on a concrete floor in his own clotting blood and day old urine, perfection had never meant less to him.  He couldn’t judge Eames anymore.  He couldn’t look down on him.  Those principles he held so dearly, those very high standards, they were the prejudices of a reality that no longer existed; a reality of absolute control and total containment that he had long cherished but which proved no more substantial than a dream.  It had been shattered forever by a couple of well-placed bullets. 

There was a new reality now; living in it would require certain compromises.

“What you did for me,” Arthur said. “I know it cost you more than you admit.  Will you let me be grateful to you?  I can’t make it up to you, I can’t make it go away, but at the very least I can do for you what you did for me. I can show you love, if you’ll let me.” 

 Eames clasped Arthur’s hand in both of his.  Falling to his knees beside the hospital bed, kissing Arthur’s hand he began to weep.  Arthur wrapped an arm around his shoulders, holding him as tightly as he could.

“I’ll help you, like you helped me,” Arthur promised. “We’ll get through this.  We can get through this together.”


End file.
